the Incarnation of Christ fulfills an otherwise unfulfilled synthesis of three truths coming together: a) God is self-communicative and generous b) God is Infinite and c) Creation is capable of receiving the fullness of God’s outward self-communicative goodness

this is fulfilled uniquely in the Word uniting Himself hypostatically to the whole of Creation summed up in a human nature as its microcosm

a year ago on this day, one of my closest friends Night Errant went on to receive his eternal reward

anyone who spent a considerable amount of time with him knew very quickly that he possessed gifts of wisdom, charisma, intuition, loyalty to his friends, zeal for Christ and His Church, and burning charity

if you can, please spare a prayer for his soul, and for the welfare of his wife and son

What no one can take away from Pope Benedict XVI is that from the way he dressed to what he explicitly taught, he did not believe the Second Vatican Council was meant in any way to repudiate the Church’s history and perennial teachings up until that point.

He was a man who, despite some weaknesses in matters of prudence, nevertheless firmly and unreservedly believed in the supernatural mission of the Church as instituted by Her Divine Spouse. Moreover, he believed that part of what is essential to that mission is loving and propagating the full richness of Her 2,000 year old theological and liturgical patrimony.

While deeply a man of the Council, I almost struggle to call him a “conciliar Pope”, because in so many ways he signified that the Church, even amidst a modernizing and radically changing world, nevertheless retains a perennial dimension so central to Her true, supernatural (and hence, supra-temporal) identity.

Although he reigned for a short time, I think he permanently definitively broke the spell of the age which insisted that the Council fundamentally and permanently changed the Church’s mission and self-image, which is partly why I don’t think this current Pontificate will be able to successfully revive that zeitgeist.


History will remember him for this

Requiescat in Pace

By His Incarnation, Christ enables each level of the great hierarchy of Being (summed up in His human nature) to, in a circular fashion, turn back inwardly to embrace the Source from which it came as a great act of retuned Love which only He, as God, can truly perform

Letting all of you know that with the nature of my current employment and having no course work for the foreseeable future, I’m going to have MUCH more time in 2023 and beyond to actually return to content creation both on cozy and YouTube (instead of just talking about it)

I plan to devote the year to the following goals:

- popularizing a view of the magisterium that simultaneously avoids the excesses of post-trads like Lofton and SSPXers alike

- using cozy to give a comprehensive defense of the Faith via regular streams

- showing how Catholic theology supports and/or coheres with even the most controversial of AF political stances

- showing how the philosophical foundations of classical theism cohere with key doctrines of Catholicism like the Trinity, Incarnation, and sacramental Life of the Church

and more!

“Simon, son of Jonah, dost thou love Me?”

Peter: “Jesus, ich liebe dich”

The idea that someone as subtle and theologically erudite as Benedict XVI would write Summorum Pontificum for such a boring reason as to placate traditionalists is just disrespectful and insulting to his intelligence, to which David Gordon can’t even hold a candle

The fact is, Pope Benedict XVI issued that motu proprio primarily for a reason that was thoroughly theological, that is, to display outwardly the inner continuity of the Church’s current liturgical life with that of Her long-standing past

What this would have done is ensure that liturgical reform (which should be an ongoing enterprise, not a static product of 1970) would be adequately enriched and continuously informed by a constant witness to the Church’s perennial liturgical patrimony living side by side with it.

THIS is the only way to bring about an optimal unification of the Roman rite, which Pope Francis rightly desires but is unable to prudently execute

he may not have been a martyr formally, but he did participate in the spirit of martyrdom and was a very holy and courageous man

requiescat in pace

One of the last public quotes from the late Cardinal Pell (speaking of Pope Benedict XVI, who had died just days before this interview)

What God asks of us to do (by the help of His grace) with the nature He gave us is really not so radically different from what He enables the birds, trees and stones to do by instinct or sheer existence, that is, to maintain congruence between one’s activities and the Divine Idea imprinted in the nature we’re given, in accordance with the given demands of all of its divinely fashioned ends, inclinations, and faculties

to the extent that one’s theology of the magisterium implies legal positivism, it must be modified so as to exclude this implication

those who equate traditionalist and progressive dissent from the Magisterium rightly say both are generally problematic, but they overlook a fundamental difference:

progressives dissent by appealing to their conscience; traditionalists dissent by appealing to prior magisterium

the former is always wrong, whereas the latter might not always be wrong, and in fact if prior magisterium happens to be more authoritative than current magisterium, and a contradiction is proved, then it is actually an act of obedience to defer to prior magisterium, not an act of dissent

the proper admonition for trads is to avoid rash judgment in proposing such a contradiction, while recognizing that deferring to prior, more authoritative magisterium can be licit, if necessary

Sacred Scripture, the unanimous consensus of the Church Fathers, and the Church’s infallible, definitive Magisterium (Leo IX’s Ad splendidum nitentis, the Third and Fourth Lateran Councils, and Pius XI’s Casti connubii) have all taught unambiguously that sexual acts are only licit insofar as they take place within the unitive and procreative dimensions of a marriage between a man and a woman.

Therefore, it doesn’t really matter who Pope Francis appoints as prefect of the Dicasrery for the Doctrine of the Faith. If he publishes anything contrary to what the Church has taught definitively on these questions, then it’s null and void and we are perfectly within our rights as Catholics to resist it publicly.

Legal penalties can be taken against sodomy in society
https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20030731_homosexual-unions_en.html

reminder that

a) papal interviews are not magisterium

b) the pope expressed his prudential opinion on anti-sodomy laws, yet reiterated the moral teaching of the Church on the matter

c) the Magisterium has ruled that there should be no legal recognition of homosexual unions and that homosexual acts should be publicly discouraged by the State